The floor creaked as he took a step. Creak. He turned on his heel and took another. Creak. He paused in his pacing, frowned, and looked at the picture hanging on the wall.

It was a moving portrait, as all are in the wizarding world, but this was exceptionally beautiful. A young girl, not quite sixteen, stood in the midst of the frame, smiling and waving. Grimacing, he took the picture and tore it off the wall. Why should he have to look at it? That girl had nothing to do with him anymore...she was a traitor, and she had been gone for a long time now.

"Lord Voldemort doesn't need anyone," he muttered to himself. But he remembered a time, long, long ago, when he had felt love for someone.That however, was somethingthat would never happen again. From his experience, he realized that it was better not to trust anyone...

The girl was Layla Cunningham. Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, as he had been called back then, had met her while visiting France during the Triwizard Tournament. He had seen her beauty, and fallen instantly in love. But of this he told no one. He had never had any friends, and had always been on his own. He wanted things to stay that way...but he could not resist this girl's charm.

They secretly wrote to eachother and met occasionally--in private. Finally, he proposed to her. Since he was from a poor family, and she from a rich one, they knew her family would never agree. But they were in love, and eloped--secretly. "No one shall ever know of this," they vowed.

A year later, their lives as a married couple were still a secret--he was nineteen and she eighteen. They had used several charms to protect their secret. But now a new challenge had come: raising their new baby daugher, Erica. How could they raise her in secret?

Tom, who had never been good with children, left Layla to take care of the child, while he stayed up late at night, visiting pubs and gradually getting more into the dark arts than he had ever been. But he told none of this to Layla: she found out the hard way.

She had come to visit Lily and James the night they were killed. When she arrived at their house, the door had been blown open...and the Potters: both dead. She fled for home, waiting in silence and grief with her little daughter, waiting for her husband to return...but he never did.